Entries from May 2012

Alan saw a red hatchback car stopped on our road yesterday afternoon. What do you suppose the people were doing? Perhaps they stopped during a long journey to pee in the woods along an isolated single lane dusty dirt road? Possibly.

Or, how about dumping this puppy in the ditch? Yes, they most definitely did. With no food, and no water (not even a natural water source, for MILES!)

Alan picked her up as soon as he saw her, and brought her to the house. Now we're on a mission to find her a home.

Let's show how cute she is, shall we?

She's tri-color, brown, black and a bit of white on her chest and faintly on her chin. Really dark black coloring around her eyes.

Legs on the 'shorter' side, stalky, and strong. Big paws for good puppy pouncing!

Pretty, white teeth -- say AWWWWW!

She's a good eater (soft and dry food), and has healthy looking doodles! (Oh, how embarrassing!)

She is not afraid to take us for walks. Really! Let's GO!

She loves to PLAY! Whatever is easily accessible will do just fine!

She is cheerful, and full of puppy energy! She gets along well with other dogs, and cats. She wants to play with them!

Yesterday, she got a really good bath to get rid of the fleas she had. She enjoyed the lathering up process, but wasn't to sure about the rinse job! But now, she's clean and SOFT as can be!

Please, help us find her a family.

We are located in central Texas, and can be reached via comments on this blog post.

Ten days ago I posted that we have a honey bee swarm in a tree here on the farm. Well, they're still there, and they've been 'buzzzzzy' making a honey comb! I snapped this quick photo today, and will try to get a better photo tomorrow. It was real windy today, and most of the photos I took today were SUPER out of focus.

See the yellow honey comb, towards the bottom of the swarm? I believe there are three comb sections. The one that you can see a portion of, I believe, is the center comb. There is a much shorter one on the left side that I've seen a portion of, and I believe there is a third one on the right side of the swarm.

Alan and I were out in the pasture this evening, and as we were walking back up to the house I just about walked under a tree, right under this temporary honey bee swarm. ZOIKS! (Click on the images for a larger view.)

Good thing I looked up and saw it when I did! I was about 6' from being directly under the swarm, which hangs about 10' above the ground in this hackberry tree. A bit too close for my liking!

We'll be keeping a very close eye on the swarm, and the farm, to make sure they don't decide to set up a hive in one of our buildings. Yikes!

This afternoon I snapped some photos of the garden. I can't believe how much things have grown!

I've got a wall of cucumbers down the center of one bed -- in front of the cucumbers are beets and spinach.

The plants have started blooming like crazy! A mix of slicing cucumbers, mini whites, and lemon cucumbers. Should be fun to see how they come in! There are little baby cucumbers everywhere! I have cucumbers in 4 other places in the garden, as well. Good thing we eat a lot of cucs! Also in this bed are 4 kale plants and a small row of beets which are now nearly hidden by the cucumbers and the kale.

The zucchini bed is growing like MAD! The six plants in this 4'x8' bed are three feet tall, and spilling over every edge of the bed. So much so that you can only see the edges of the bed in one or two locations.

Three of the plants in the bed are yellow zucchini. The plants are doing well, and putting on a lot of fruit.

The remaining three plants are black zucchini's, and just like the yellows, the plants are putting on LOTS of fruit. I have zucchini plants in several other locations as well, so I imagine we'll be eating zucchini for a good long while. Some of the other plants are just starting to put out blooms, others are just putting on their second and third leaves, and others still have yet to come up. I did good succession planting, this year!

I should have picked several zucchini off of this plant today, but didn't get around to it. I'd better bring them in tomorrow, or we'll have some 5lb zucchini to deal with! *grin*

The trough gardens are doing great! Soon, the patty pan squash will start to hang down over the edge, and hopefully the nasturtiums I have planted in the troughs will start to trail down over the edge as well.

The mint, herbs, dill, radish, chard and these two Juliet tomato plants are growing well. The dill actually has several flowers that have gone to seed.

There are some squash plants in this bed that have grown so tall, I think they're shading out the tomatoes and peppers behind them. In the front corner is another grouping of cucumbers, and same with the corner of the bed on the left .... yup, more cucumbers. *grin* You can also see how tall the sunflowers are getting along the chicken yard fence! They are going to be beautiful!

This is one of the squash plants in the bed shown in the photo, above. Not only are the plants crazy tall, but they are LOADED with squash!

This bed has an 8-Ball zucchini, a butternut, and a patty pan squash plant. Cucumbers, some onions, and some kale are on the backside. On the left side of this photo you can see part of the Armenian cucumbers I have planted on the tree branch tee-pee trellis I built last year. They are really strong, healthy looking plants, so I hope they do well.

Every time I go out to the garden, I'm amazed at the progress. I actually ate the first ripe cherry tomato this morning, right off the vine. And it was DELISH!!

Alan and I have been talking about making the chicken yard larger, and today we managed to get it done!

The existing yard was 30'x40'. To add to the length of the yard, we took the kennel panels we used to use to keep the goats in at night (when they were little) over to the chicken yard. In the photo above, we were in the process of adding the panels to the end of the existing chicken yard. After we had two additional panels added to each side of the yard, we moved the three end panels out to the 'new' end of the yard. Alan set a t-post at each joining section of fence, to keep things nice and stable.

By adding four more panels we were able to make the yard 30'x60'! I will need to fasten some wires across the yard at various locations to deter predatory birds from dropping into the yard. At night, all the chickens and ducks get locked up in the covered yard/coop area, safe from night time predators.

The girls are going to love digging up all of the new grass. They've got quite a job ahead of them!

They also love the leaves from the hackberry trees behind the yard. They strip a branch in no time!

This week's High Hopes challenge theme is "Animals!" You will find all the details on the High Hopes blog. The challenge runs through Monday; join the fun and see if you win a chance to be a guest designer!

I put together a little wrapped envie, perfect for a quick gift of cash to a lucky fella! This is the backside, showing how the chocolate cardstock wraps around the plaid envelope.

Our neighbor recently had their pasture grass cut and baled. To prepare for any "drought" conditions later this summer, we bought a dozen bales from them. We love that it's LOCAL, and not treated with any chemicals or pesticides.

Last night, Alan brought our bales from the field, two at a time. Off in the distance, you can see Alan driving the tractor, a bale on the front, and one on the back.

Good thing he didn't have to go far ... visibility was sort of an issue. *grin*

Alan has a bale spear mounted on the bucket of the tractor, and another spear on the back. The spears poke into the bale, allowing them to be lifted and moved.